AP File PhotoDetroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland repeated Tuesday that his team needs to develop a bit of a mean streak.

DETROIT -- The Detroit Tigers are winning games at a better rate than they had before. They are closing in on the first-place Chicago White Sox.

But they are still too nice, at least in manager Jim Leyland's estimation.

Leyland, revisiting a topic he has discussed multiple times this season, said Tuesday afternoon that he still hopes his team develops a bit of an attitude.

"They're a bunch of great guys," Leyland said Tuesday afternoon. "I wish they had a little meaner streak in
them from 7 to 10 (p.m.) and just kept their other personalities the rest of
the time."

Leyland mentioned the way the New York Yankees seem to carry themselves
every season and spoke at length about how the 2006 Tigers team had to
gain confidence in itself, learn how to win and develop some swagger
before it advanced to the World Series that season.

"We need to have that little edge," Leyland said. "If you watch all the good teams in any
sport over the history of sports, they've all got a little different
swagger to them. You can call it cocky, you can call it what you want,
but they've got a different swagger to them."

Leyland said the 2006 Tigers team was clearly talented from the start but that the players had "no idea" how to win when the season started.

"They figured it out," he said. "They just were out of sync. They had a couple
stars, they didn't know how to handle all that, there was a lot of stuff
going on evidently, but they figured it out quick. They became a team,
and they became a tough team. A very good team. …

"I just kind of watched it. I tried to set the tone by sending the
message, but I kind of let them figure it out. And they figured it out.
They found out they enjoyed winning."

The Tigers had won eight of their past 10 games and had climbed to within 2 1/2 games of the first-place Chicago White Sox heading into their game Tuesday night against St. Louis. But they remain under .500 for the season.

"We're not back to good yet," Leyland said of outsiders' perception of his team. "We're back to 'decent' in the eyes of everybody, but we're not back to good yet, so we'll just let that ride and see what happens.

"We're doing better, but we've still got a ways to go and we still have to get that little extra edge."